Smes and export performance

Abstract

Large corporations have not been the only actors of multinational and global growth in recent decades. Small and medium-sized firms have demonstrated not only their capability of being convincing interpreters of internationalization processes, but they have also evidenced a variety in approaches to international markets. As a consequence, the theories that used to consider the internationalization of SMEs in a framework of homogeneity of behaviors and growth path, have to be revisited to take into account variety of strategic and organizational approaches as well as variety in international growth paths. Moreover, the key question arising is whether the concept itself of size has to be revisited in the light of the parallel de-structuring of large corporations and innovative market seizing and growing organizational complexity of small firms. The paper assumptions have been tested on a sample of Italian SMEs: the research reveals that nor size neither age of the firms are correlated to export performance. The latter seems to depend primarily on the product/market segment strategy, the main variable capable of defining the different clusters emerging in international SMEs.